Evan Wright
"You won't have to do that. This book... It's gonna be good. I promise. I just need some more time, OK?" Evan Wright, also known as''' The Writer', is a playable character in [[Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number|''Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number]]. Evan Wright is a veteran journalist turned writer. He is currently researching and writing a book about the Masked Maniac killings (the events from the Hotline Miami), but has reached dead ends and asks his friend, Detective Manny Pardo, in help in getting leads to write his book. Evan holds this book very closely to his heart, and will go to great lengths for more information to include in it. Events in Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number SPOILER WARNING: PLOT DETAILS BELOW 1985 Evan was a war correspondent during the Hawaiian Conflict. On March 17th he is seen interviewing the D Company Commander before he asked his photographer to get two quick Polaroid photos of Beard and Jacket. Early November 1991 On November 5th, Writer is attending Jacket's trial, taking notes. The trial reveals that Jacket's phone message tapes are missing, and that Jacket has explained to his defense attorney that he believes agents within the Russian mob were behind the messages. The police chief confirms that calls to Jackets apartment appear to have been made from a mob-associated hang out called The Golden Truck Stop (which Jacket assaulted, and which Biker privately discovered was a frame up job by the Janitors and Phone Hom manager before he fled Miami). As the trial is coming to a close, Evan then gets up and calls his personal friend, Manny Pardo, asking him for anyone he can talk to about The Golden Truckstop. Pardo is reluctant, but Evan insists Pardo "owes him one," possibly for favorable press coverage of Pardo when he was a Miami journalist. Pardo gives him the location of a Russian mobster, Petrov, in a local bath house (not dissimilar to, but considerably smaller than, the one he interrogated Jake in). On his way out of the courthouse, Writer sees several of the Fans protesting alongside many of the same sprites from the Halloween party. Across from them appears to be a helmet-less Biker, showing that he's returned to Miami after fleeing 50 Blessings in Resolution. He hails a cab due to his lack of personal car, and takes it to the Russian bath house. Upon arriving at the bath house he is denied entry for not being a VIP, in a manner similar to how Jacket imagined Richter talking when he believed Richter was a Russian assassin in his coma dream (outro to Deadline). This could hint at businesses generally discriminating toward non-Russians. Apparently snapping, Evan promptly beats the doorman to death. Visibly panicked, he attempts CPR but fails to revive the doorman. Notably not returning to the cab, he rushes inside and shouts for someone to call an ambulance. He progresses into the bath house, where he's attacked by Russian guards and dispatches them, notably only severely maiming his victims instead of killing them by default. Despite heavy resistance, he pushes onto the next floor and makes his way past more guards to Petrov. Petrov demands to know who Evan is. Evan starts to introduce himself but cuts himself short, determining that a bad idea. He instead tells him that he's writing a book on the "Mask Maniac" and that his friend Detective Pardo sent him. Petrov comments Pardo's a bad friend for sending Evan to such a dangerous place, to which Evan agrees. Petrov, admiring that Evan fought his way to him and risked his life just for a lead, gives him two questions before he gets "the fuck out of here." Evan asks Petrov if he believes the 1989 killers were vigilantes. Petrov replies they were far too organized, directed, and well-informed for that to be the case. Evan asks what they were after targeting the Russian mob. Petrov doesn't know, but comments they were well trained, obliterated the mob's organization, and impossible to crack in interrogation. Evan finally returns to the cab, stepping over the corpse of the doorman. Afterward, Pardo invites Evan to a bar and buys him a beer, which Evan merely thumbs. Pardo asks if anything happened, but Evan is reluctant to give specific details to a police detective for obvious reasons. He sums it up by saying Petrov wouldn't see him and he had trouble getting in. Pardo said he just gave him the address to scare him off writing the book and suggest he switch a safer, more sophisticated, and ongoing story. He says that people will have soon forgotten the masked killers entirely and that there won't be any fame to capitalize on. Evan says he sometime wonders why he hangs out with Pardo and comments that he's been a douchebag recently. Pardo stresses that he bought him a beer to make up for it and that Evan got a good lead out of it, but Evan refuses to call it even between them. Pardo concedes but stresses he's putting his job on the line, to which Evan replies he's shocked Pardo hasn't be fired for misconduct or incompetence already, suggesting he has personal knowledge of both. Evan moves to leave, and Pardo offers him a (slightly buzzed) ride home. Evan acknowledges it's dangerous to use bus these days (hinting at the urban decay implied by the first Hotline Miami's empty stores), but that he'll risk it, leaving Pardo alone. Mid November, 1991 On November 11th, Evan is alone at home, which shows evidence of moderately sized family: young son with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles toys, Batman sheets, a Nintendo Entertainment System, and several toy guns, and a crib in the master bedroom. A private study with a type writer is on the opposite side of the house. On the kitchen table there's a note from his wife, Sharon, that she took their son Jimmy to school and left Evan some breakfast because he slept in. There's a newspaper open to a story on the fifth victim of the Miami Mutilator, indicating that the subject is newsworthy and perhaps book worthy after all, and compounding that the newspaper Evan quit is never shy on information. He leaves the house seemingly without destination and gets on a subway train. A polite black hobo asks Evan for some money, which he quickly agrees to, but the hobo is overtaken by Richard, who asks if he looks like he wants Evan's "dirty money" (implying Evan fears there's shame in popularizing killings for profit). Richard changes into an image of his wife, who insists they have very little money even to pay rent with, and that says that if Evan doesn't get a steady job to feed the kids she'll leave him and them with her. Evan promises the book will do well as long as he gets more time to make it good. Richard returns, saying that time is the one thing Evan doesn't have. Richard suggests that Evan's priorities should be weighed especially heavy. Evan asks what he's implying, but the hobo returns, saying he actually doesn't want Evan's filthy money. Evan gets off at Palnetto Station, which is completely overrun by a heavily armed local gang. He risks his life to press on and dispatch them, again only maiming with melee weapons by default. Pipe Guy tags a directory declaring the station "our turf now." If Evan is seen, Pipe Guy will alert all gangsters in the area to his exact location by banging his pipe. Emerging from the station, Evan takes a bus to Rosa Berg's house. The door is unlocked and Evan lets himself in. Rosa apologizes for not being able to answer the door due to her legs not being what they used to. She asks him if he's the writer who called earlier, which he confirms and asks her about her son. She said he was always a sweet child and she has no idea how he got mixed up in "that mess." She mentions he was behaving differently, going out to visit "old friends" despite a history of being a loner. She never thought much of it because "a man that age shouldn't be alone all the time." She feels she was holding him back, as he spent most of his time caring for her. She visited him several times in prison, but he only told her it was better that she didn't know. Evan asks if she's been in contact with her son since his prison escape. She refuses to answer, but agrees to give him Evan's number if he ever does call. Evan thanks her and asks to look around. In her son's room he finds a collection of phone message tapes beginning in March, 1989, which he pockets before returning to the bus stop. Notably Rosa Berg's son's name is never said in this scene, leaving it to be revealed later. If Evan found his phone message easter egg at home, he also goes to Hank's Bar, which surrealistically houses all Hotline Miami protagonists inside sans Jacket and Richter, depicting them and their reactions to the games' events. Writer has brought a huge sum, two hundred dollars, with which to pay for information. At the bar he meets a completely plastered and scarred Biker, who reveals that after Resolution he hid out in the desert, but lost his will to fight after meeting a strange man. Biker mentions killing a bunch of Russians, and Evan asks if he was in the war, prompting Biker to angrily specify it was in Miami. He blearily mentions "some patriotic bullshit" he signed up for before getting phone calls. Evan asks "phone calls?" (apparently completely censoring out the vague reference to 50 Blessings), fishing for more information, but Biker angrily shouts that Evan isn't listening. Biker said he got fed up and tried to quit, and that he found out they were up to something big and fled to the desert. Evan asks if Biker thinks it was a conspiracy, but Biker misunderstands and insists it was real, "not a fucking conspiracy." Evan asks who Biker believes was behind the messages, but Biker says "beats me" and asks for his drinking money. Evan refuses to fuel Biker's alcoholism and calls his story insubstantial. Notably many factors are at play to ensure Evan tunes Biker out or otherwise doesn't learn about 50 Blessings: Biker's temperament, Biker's bleary memory, the perceived immorality of helping Biker drink himself to death, and Evan's complete lack of income. Late November, 1991 On November 27th, Detective Pardo again risks his job to let Evan into the evidence locker to inspect Jake's clothes. He finds nothing, Pardo says I told you so and apologizes for not being any more help. Evan reluctantly calls it even between them. Dream static bookends the scene, indicating Evan's bonus scene is a nightmare he has. That night Evan dreams he found a floppy drive in the evidence locker, and takes it to a Copy Flash to get a print out of 50 Blessings addresses. He enters the abandoned facility, notably surround by the surreal void from Martin Brown's imagined levels. In the back room he's confronted by a group of masked killers, three of which talk to him: the Don Juan- and Richard-masked thugs allude to a secret deal Evan made to not report on them fully, leaving them be. He says he doesn't understand before a George-masked thug tells him this isn't his place and that he should leave. Writer shockingly complies and finds the place swarming with anonymous gangsters, forced to fight his way back home. This sequence interestingly suggests Writer actually has a willful ignorance to the nature of his book's subject matter (an implication which comes up again later), and implies he's more concerned with the struggle to go home to his family (or his typewriter) than with the struggle to find the truth. December 1991 At an unspecified date, Evan is alone in his house typing. All beds except half of the master bedroom's bed have been stripped, indicating his wife finally took the kids and left. On the kitchen table is a newspaper open to injury and death tolls of the recent anti-Russian protest rallies. Evan likely keeps tabs on this because his book is relevant to violence and anti-Russian sentiment. He receives a phone call from Rosa Berg's son, who nearly introduces himself but stops and merely said Evan spoke to his mother. Evan is surprised he actually called, and says he would love to hear his story. Before telling Evan anything, he asks Evan to buy his mother a plane ticket to Hawaii. Evan says he gives no promises but will come through if the story is good. Evan asks him to start at the beginning so he can get "the full picture," and he says at first the phone calls were extremely straightforward and asked only small favors, such as calling random numbers to leave cryptic messages, and spray tagging various locations ("A circle with three lines across"). He said he didn't listen to them and figured they were a prank, but they started to get threatening, and several days later he woke up to find his car torched and a message threatening his mother. He doesn't explain how he acquired his mask, likely for dramatic reveal purposes. Richter runs through his story, and Writer seems to take special note of the jobs on April 2nd, April 10th, and April 23rd, as particularly good for his book. This period of Richter's 50 Blessings career is apparently before he started using a silenced submachine gun (which was perhaps a one-time instance). After 1989 and early 1990's events are completely covered, Evan stops Richter while he fetches a new notepad. His bed is covered with notes, apparently on Richter, and also features a newspaper open to an opinion piece on the upcoming RAC conference and Russian presidential visit, which comments that many see the event as just for show. Evan is again shown to keep tabs on Russian news stories as it directly connects to his book's anti-Russian subject matter and thereby its popularity. Evan again takes special note of Richter's prison escape on July 20th, 1990. After Richter's story is finished, Evan asks where he went, and Richter reluctantly tells Evan he's in Hawaii. Evan briefly wonders if he even has enough money for a plane ticket, but determines to scrap it together somehow because "it wouldn't be right otherwise." Evan is overwhelmingly grateful to Richter for all the help he's been. Interestingly, Richter's story includes both familial care and a huge tap of violence to play up in a book, and to compound the family aspect Evan gets a letter for his wife begging him to call her and stop putting work ahead of his family. Evan then gets a final ultimatum: continue the book or salvage his family, a choice that drastically alters the rest of Evan's life. * If he calls his wife, Evan quits writing the book. He is last seen before the nuclear blast, having dinner at home, reunited with his family. This seems to be the default option if Apocalypse is played by itself. * If he goes to the typewriter, he can be heard being interviewed on TV in the epilogue, stating that he has uncovered evidence of a conspiracy behind the masked murders, and that the official investigations were sloppy and insufficient at that in time they'll uncover the truth ("Time is the one thing you don't have"). When the atomic blast destroys him, he is seen alone at his typewriter, still trying to finish the book. Playstyle Unlike all other characters, Evan plays non-lethally, for the most part. He only disables enemies with blunt weapons and does not kill them and unloads every firearm acquired (which provides bonus points and adds to an on going combo). However, executing two knocked down enemies (whether it being with your own hands or a blunt melee weapon) initiates a Rage Mode in which Evan takes off his jacket and allows himself to use lethal weapons, including guns and bladed weapons. During Rage Mode, the screen will become heavily static, while the borders of the screen glow red. A non-lethal playstyle provides more points than a lethal one, so the former is preferable. Evan is never required to fight dogs or thugs. Trivia *Evan can be seen in the locked interrogation room of the police station during Pardo's nightmare scene in Caught, indicating Pardo believes Evan has sufficient evidence to put him away as the Miami Mutilator. Whether Evan actually paid enough attention to Pardo and is willfully ignorant is left vague. *Evan Wright is also the name of a real-life journalist, best known for writing the book Generation Kill, which was later turned into a series for HBO by David Simon. His appearance seems to match the ex-mafia member Jon Robert's look on the cover of Evan Wright's book, American Desperado. Just like the Evan in HM2, the real Evan Wright interviews criminals to write memoirs of their life in crime. **The real Evan Wright would also be 24-25 years old (18-19 years old in 1985) at the time the game takes place, as Wright was born sometime around 1966. * Evan contrary to popular belief, is not a pacifist. A pacifist is someone who does not believe in violence, and Evan is known to get very violent, as seen in any of his levels. He is non lethal, but not a pacifist. * He seems to have some degree of experience with firearms, both using and unloading them, most likely coming from his time as a war journalist during the Russo-American War. Category:Hotline Miami 2 characters Category:Hotline Miami 2 playable characters Category:Playable characters